Why You Should Get a Furbo for Your Frenchie

This Christmas I was lucky enough to get a Furbo dog camera as a gift my wife. If you’ve not seen or heard of the Furbo before, I am going to explain why you should get one for your French Bulldog and why I think it’s such good value for money.

In simple terms, the Furbo is an interactive dog camera that you can place in your home and then access remotely from your phone. It also lets you talk to your dog and give them treats whilst you’re out of the house.

Is a Furbo good for dogs? Should Frenchie owners get one? Yes, and yes… (here’s how much they cost on Amazon).

Why should I get a Furbo?

If you are going to have to leave your dog at home for a few hours at a time, then the Furbo dog camera is going to be one of the bets investments you ever make – if you value your dog’s happiness!

For Frenchie owners this is even more important, as our beloved dogs are renowned as being big sufferers of separation anxiety. I’ve blogged extensively about this problem before and you can read more about it here.

Here are some of the signs of separation anxiety that a Furbo could help to reduce – and I will explain why a little further down the page.

• Urinating and defecating indoors when you’re out.
• Barking and howling when you leave the house.
• Pacing, heavy panting, and drooling.
• Chewing, digging, and destructive behaviour.
• Trying to escape the house.

Is a Furbo easy to set up?

It’s so simple and will take around 5 minutes to set up. Here’s what you do:

• Take the Furbo out of the box and connect to the mains.
• Switch it on and then download the Furbo app to your phone.
• Sign up for a Furbo account.
• Pair via Bluetooth between your phone and the Furbo.
• Connect to the Furbo to your home WIFI network.

And that’s it. The Furbo will now be ready to use.

What is the Furbo like to use?

This week we tried our Furbo out for the first time with Claude the French Bulldog. You can see some of the video footage in our YouTube video (subscribe for weekly episodes) lower down this page.

If you like ease of use, you should get a Furbo because the simplicity here is key.

You leave your house, open up the smartphone app, click connect, and you then see your dog at home through the camera.

You can talk to your French Bulldog by clicking the microphone button, you can take photos of your Frenchie, and you can also capture 60 seconds of video at a time.

The Furbo also comes with bark detection technology. This means if it hears your Frenchie bark when you’re out, you get a notification prompting you to connect to the camera to see what’s going on at home.

But what I love the most about the Furbo is the way you can fire treats out of it!

Before you leave home, you break up some treats into sizes no larger than a bean, put them in the top of the Furbo and you’re good to go.

Then what you can do is swipe up on the treat button on the app’s screen and a treat is fired out towards your French Bulldog. You can see this in action in the video below.

Who should get a Furbo?

If the maximum amount of time that you leave your Frenchie home alone is no more than an hour, then perhaps this isn’t really a worthwhile investment. After all, most French Bulldogs should be fine being left alone for 60 minutes.

However, if you frequently need to leave your Frenchie at home by themselves for longer than one-hour periods, then a Furbo dog camera is a no-brainer.

The main reason being?

You can talk to your Frenchie when you’re out of the house, so they don’t get lonely and sad when left alone.

Does a Furbo help with separation anxiety?

Whilst I have no scientific proof that a Furbo does help with dog’s separation anxiety, I do know that Claude seemed a lot happier this week after we’d been out for a couple of hours.

We had to take our son to his swimming lesson. We loaded the Furbo up with treats, left our Frenchie at home and off went to the local pool.

Whilst our son was having his lesson, my wife and I took it in turns to say hello to Claude every 15 minutes or so via the Furbo app.

That regularity may have been overkill, but it was fun for us, and we think it was fun for Claude too. We were able to check in with him, say hello, give him a little treat, and let him know that we would be back.

Now, it probably confused him hearing our voices coming from the Furbo, but I can only imagine it must have made him feel less anxious about being left home alone.

The bottom line; a Furbo is good for dogs.

Is Furbo worth the money?

The question you should really ask yourself here is what price do you put on your French Bulldog’s happiness? If you’re going to be leaving them at home, then having a Furbo is the next best thing to having a dog sitter.

In terms of value, think of it this way.

The Furbo retails at around £190 in the UK, or $200 in the United States. Assuming that you have your Furbo for 2 years before replacing or upgrading it, here’s how much it will cost you each day:

• US daily Furbo cost over 2 years: 27 cents a day
• UK daily Furbo cost over 2 years: 26 pence a day

Based on that, you cannot deny that a Furbo is worth the money. It means you are spending just pennies or cents each day to help your French Bulldog’s happiness and possible separation anxiety.

However, it should not be seen as something you can use all day when at work. For me that length of time is way too long to be leaving at home by themselves. If do have a job that’s 9 to 5, please don’t get a Frenchie who will be left at home all day.

I believe the Furbo dog camera is great for French Bulldogs where you might be away for up to 4 hours at a home. Anything longer than that seems a bit cruel to me.

The other aspect I’ve not gone into huge detail on is the bark detection.

It’s simple to setup, and means you get a notification on your phone when your dog barks. If you’re security conscious or worried how much your Frenchie barks during the day, it’s a great feature. 

What are the best dog treats for a Furbo?

Don’t be fooled into thinking you need to buy special treats to use with the Furbo. You can use any treat or kibble with the device, providing it’s at the right size.

In the photo below you can see how small I break dog treats up to fit into the Furbo dog camera, before firing them at our French Bulldog to eat.

What the manufacturer says about separation anxiety

Furbo often talk about separation anxiety, and how their device can help dogs. I’ve lifted some of the notes from their own website to supplement my own page. Here’s what they say about a Furbo can help with separation anxiety: 

• Provide positive reinforcement with the clicking sound.
• Make Furbo part of your morning routine to help prepare your dog for your departure.
• Dispense calming treats to help ease anxiety and distract your pup.
• Determine if you need to return.
• Monitor training progress.
• Ask Amazon Alexa to toss treats on a schedule.
• You can speak to your dog.
• You can toss treats to help calm them.
• Furbo makes the experience less traumatic.
• Furbo lets dogs have fun while you are away and provides stimulation.

Conclusion

The Furbo is an amazing dog camera and should be on the shopping list of every single French Bulldog owner out there. It’s simple to use, simple to set-up, and works out at great value for money based on the calculations I’ve made.

If you own a Frenchie and are going to be leaving them alone for an hour or more, then you should get a Furbo dog camera.

My wife bought mine at Christmas time on Amazon when she was able to take advantage of a good deal. Most of the year around you shouldn’t have to spend anything more than the prices I detailed further up the page – it’s great value for money, and you can check Furbo prices on Amazon.

I genuinely think that you will very quickly consider the Furbo as the best thing you ever bought for your French Bulldog.